“How much did you pay for her?”
“Four hundred and fifty-three yuan, from Mount Zhongnan. We’re destined to be together; she started giving milk right after she came, and she has such a nice temper she’s like family.”
“How long have you been selling milk?” the vet asked.
“Over a year now. The poor thing, she walked up streets and down alleyways with me.”
“Then I’ll have to congratulate you. You’ve earned back what you paid for the cow by selling her milk. Moreover, she’ll give you several thousand yuan with about a hundred jin of meat and the hide. She has a liver problem, you know. Cows, like humans, can have liver diseases, but when a cow’s liver goes bad, it produces cow bezoar, which is valuable stuff. People have tried everything to get cows to produce it, but your family has this cow. It’s like money raining down on you. What’s your concern?”
“What are you talking about? I don’t care about cow bezoar, whatever that is. I’m not so cold-hearted that I could watch my cow die just to get that stuff. She’s a member of the family. Please write a prescription for her. I’ll give her the medicine and let her rest.”
“I’ve never met anyone like you. You have a good heart, but let me tell you, I can’t cure her; no one can. Listen to me, find a butcher tomorrow and you can still get some meat off her. If you wait too long, you won’t be able to save her, and her flesh will melt away.”
Aunty Liu turned and went back to the house to cry, ignoring her husband when he told her to make the vet something to eat. Irritated, he cursed, “Would you cry that hard if your old man died?” Looking somewhat embarrassed, he turned to Zhuang and Tang. “That wife of mine is so muddle-headed that neither heaven nor earth can clear her mind. Let’s go inside. I’ll have her make something for us.”
“Aunty Liu has had the cow for a long time,” Zhuang said. “That’s why she feels so bad. I only drank its milk, and I feel bad.”
They heard the sound of water sloshing in a basin. “Are you preparing dough?” her husband asked. “Make us some noodle soup.”
Aunty Liu walked out with a basin containing mung-bean paste for the cow. The vet frowned and said, “I’ll be on my way. Someone in another village has asked me to check on their cow. You can pay me now. This cow isn’t going to live much longer, so eight or ten yuan will do.” Aunty Liu’s husband tried to get the vet to stay, but he begged off, so her husband paid him and saw him to the gate. In the face of Aunty Liu’s sorrow, Zhuang and Tang decided to leave, too; when they said good-bye and walked to the gate, the cow lowed from inside.
Zhuang shook his head. “I don’t know what’s happening these days. There have been so many disasters, it’s enough to make you lose heart.”
“Did you and Liu Yue get together again?” Tang asked him.
“Why bring that up when I’m talking about serious matters?”
“You slept with her, so naturally that will lead to a disaster. If you continue, either you or I will meet with a bad end.”
Zhuang said that was nonsense, but deep down he was troubled, and as he looked back, fear set in. “Why would I do that? She’s in love with Zhao Jingwu, and everything is fine with him.”
“It’s still early,” she said.
When they reached Huancheng Road, he wanted to hail a taxi, but she preferred to walk so they could talk. For some reason, Zhuang thought of Ah-lan. He asked Tang if she would be willing to visit Ah-lan at the mental hospital. He had told her about the sisters, leaving out his relationship with Ah-can. She was unhappy that he wanted to go see Ah-lan at that moment.
“Have you been thinking about her? Do you regret not being her lover? I’m with you now, and still you’re thinking about her. As people say, whatever you can’t eat smells wonderful until you actually eat it.”
“This is the road to the hospital, which reminded me of her. Why are you jealous? I don’t know what you’d be thinking if she weren’t ill.”
“What am I supposed to do? All right, if it will make you happy, I’ll go with you. I want to see what sort of rare beauty she is. But I’m afraid you might make her feel even worse, since she’s alone on that side of the gate while you’re holding the hand of a pretty girl on this side.”
Zhuang wavered. “I won’t go, then. She’s in such a bad way, she might not recognize me anyway.”
“Maybe you really don’t want to go,” she said with a smile and a wink. He pinched off a blade of grass to tickle her. She jumped to the side of the road, saying she had to pee. As she walked though waist-high wormwood, the tips of her hair floated in and out of sight atop the grass, creating a captivating air of mystery.
“Go in farther, or people in passing cars will see your rear end,” Zhuang said.
“They’d only see a white rock.” She hummed a tune, even sang a few lines, something she hadn’t done before. It reminded Zhuang of the time Liu Yue had sung her folk song.
“So you can sing too, Wan’er.”
“Of course.”
“What’s that you’re singing?”
“A flower drum song from southern Shaanxi.”
Zhuang was intrigued. “Keep singing, it’s beautiful.”
She sang softly as she watched her urine destroy an anthilclass="underline"
The skin of my lips misses you so;
it’s hard to tell anyone, oh no.
The tips of my hair miss you so;
the red ribbons are hard to get, oh no.
The irises of my eyes miss you so;
I mistake another man for you, oh no.
The tip of my tongue misses you so;
I can’t taste the condiments, oh no.
As he listened to the song, Zhuang was worried that passersby might hear it and look in their direction, so he kept careful watch. First he saw a rabbit scamper from one side of the road to the other so swiftly that it was only a blurry shadow; then he noticed four or five people standing a ways off, which prompted him to whisper, “Enough. Stop singing.” When the people didn’t move, he realized they were waiting at a bus stop; his mind at ease, he took out a cigarette. A bus picked that moment to arrive and let out a passenger, who headed his way. Zhuang nervously asked Tang if she was finished. When he saw who the passenger was, it nearly took his breath away. It was Ah-can. Zhuang called out to her. She looked up. The sun was in her eyes, so she shielded them with her hand, then froze. She spun around and started running. The people waiting for the bus had boarded and the door had shut, but she banged on it and shouted until it was opened again. She hopped on; the door shut just as Zhuang ran up and the bus drove off, with the back of her blouse caught in the door. He waved and shouted, “Ah-can! Ah-can! Why won’t you see me? Why did you run off? Where do you live?” He ran after the bus, but he was too late; he slumped to the grass when he got back to the spot where he had been standing.
Meanwhile, Tang had been flicking off the many grasshoppers that had jumped onto her as she was peeing. She amused herself by catching them and tying them together by the legs with her hair, until she had four in a row. As she was bringing the string of insects to show Zhuang, she witnessed his fruitless chase and dropped the grasshoppers. The sad look on his face stopped her from making a joke. “Was that Ah-can?” Zhuang nodded. “How bizarre! We were talking about Ah-lan and Ah-can shows up. Why did she run away when she saw you?”
“She said she never wanted to see me again. She must have been visiting her sister at the hospital, which means she lives around here. She didn’t want me to know where she lives, so she jumped on the bus again.”